


gonna marry the night

by weatheredlaw



Series: ballet/bullet/knees and toes [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Ballet, F/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:45:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone should have warned her ages ago. Or: "You can't control pain, Ariadne. Pain controls you." -- a love story in peroxide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gonna marry the night

**Author's Note:**

> (moved here from livejournal; originally written january 2012)
> 
> ballerina!ariadne/vague and mysterious badass!arthur,as with a side of eames and a bit of cobb. idk why but i was listening to "marry the night" while i was finishing this so there's your title.

The girl's name is Laura. She's small and nimble and easily out-dances most of the other girls in her class. Ariadne keeps a close eye on her, making sure she has something to challenge her with, something to keep her sharp. The other girls, they're here because their mothers work late, or because cultured hobbies like ballet sound good at cocktail parties.

But this one, she's going to _be someone._

She's quiet and well-mannered. Doesn't gossip like the other girls. Keeps to herself. After a few weeks of watching her and looking closely at the man who comes to pick her up every day, Ariadne sees why. He has a stern face. Not angry. Not upset. Just...masked. He catches her eye one evening and Ariadne freezes at the door, pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders. He watches like he's daring her to look away.

She doesn't, and it earns her a nod. The nod flushes itself down to her belly and warms her for the rest of the day. A connection with the steel-faced man. Ariadne feels herself melt across the floor to her little office. She gathers up her things and tugs on her coat, shutting out the lights before catching herself in the reflection of the last mirror. _You're thinner,_ her mother would say. The last light goes out, and Ariadne heads home.

 

 

Once upon a time, Ariadne was like Laura, watching every turn she made in the mirror. Ballet was something her mother put her in to give her something to do after school, instead of sitting around at home, growing more attached to her father's hip at his drawing table. Ariadne never quite drew away from that table. She sketches in her off-time, riding the subway to her block, thinking about joints and muscles and how they connect.

She draws the anatomy of her ankle, the tattered mess of bone she imagines it to be. The throbbing pain of it. The steel-faced man. Laura. She draws a lot of things on her way home. Quick sketches that won't get any further than her book. Her stop comes up and she slips everything back into her bag. Slips just as easily onto the platform and up the stairs. 

In the tub, Ariadne flexes her ankle, scowling when it twinges. She focuses on something else. On his face. It's a good face, she reasons with herself. Short-cropped hair and eyes that stare quick and easy right through her. She presses a finger between her legs and, when she's through, she comes with nothing but a thought on her lips. A quiet picture to get her through the night.

She slips between her sheets and trying not to lay on her bad hip. Everything hurts these days. Everything.

 

 

Ariadne's boss likes to call these their Christmas classes, but with a snarl on her lips. Ariadne just keeps going, keeps doing the routines for class and waiting for that last one, waiting for Laura. Waiting to watch and see what she does. From across the room, Laura unlaces her shoes for the night. Ariadne stands and leans down, taking one in her hand. 

"These are nice."

"My uncle bought them for me."

"Nice uncle." Laura shrugs. Ariadne returns the shoe. "Is that who picks you up every night?" Laura nods. "Can I talk to him?"

"He doesn't talk much."

"Can I try?"

"I guess." Ariadne follows her out as an ancient black Mercedes pulls up outside. For a moment, she almost pretends it's too cold. But the man's face cuts through the fear and she steps outside after Laura. "This is Miss Ariadne. She's my teacher," Laura says before getting into the car.

Ariadne tries to figure out what to say. She didn't think she was going to get this far. "Laura...Laura is really talented."

"I know." The man leans against the side of the car and looks down the street. "She talks about you a lot." Ariadne flushes. "Arthur," he says, extending a hand. Ariadne takes it. "I have to get her home. Maybe I'll see you again." It sounds so much like a promise that Ariadne nods fervently and backs away from the car as Arthur walks around to the driver's side. "See you soon, Miss Ariadne." 

 

 

It's always around this time of year that Ariadne's mother begins leaving anywhere between five to eleven messages on her phone. Christmas tends to run her mother ragged, emotions stretched taut. Any other time of the year, she doesn't care much about what her daughter is doing. But Thanksgiving comes around, and sometimes Ariadne's there, and sometimes she isn't. And the messages are quick and desperate and full of a tight thread of longing. 

Ariadne returns them dutifully, talking to her mother as she takes the subway home, as she strips for her bath, as she counts out her pain meds, does her stretches. And always, her mother says, right before she hangs up, "Take good care of yourself." 

It hurts to hear it. Because Ariadne hasn't taken good care of herself in a while. She hangs up the phone and heats up a bowl of noodles, curling in front of the TV and watching a Christmas special until she falls asleep. It's the pain of her leg muscles spasming that wakes her up around one in the morning. She stretches until the trembling stops and limps to her bed.

 _Take good care of yourself._ Someone should have said that _before_ she fucked everything up. When she was still perched by her father's side, watching the way the muscles in his wrist would flex, wondering how bone and tendons connected, how they could move to make such beautiful, swooping lines. Lines that met and made boxes and houses and beautiful figures that danced across the pages.

Someone should have warned her ages ago.

 

 

Laura's lessons are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so Ariadne is surprised to find Arthur leaning against the wall of the studio, watching people head on by. "We're all closed up," she says, hoping to startle him. Her words have no effect and he just smiles at her, offering an arm. She takes it.

"I thought I might see if you wanted to have dinner with me." Ariadne glances down at herself, still in leggings and a sweater, and opens her mouth to protest. "Nowhere too fancy," he adds. "Not that I don't want to impress you. I just like to set the bar pretty low at first." He frowns. "I can walk you home instead, if you want. There's no obligation."

Ariadne thinks about her habits, her routines. All the things she does without fail, each night. The pill counting and the bath and the stretches. She thinks about the messages from her mother and sketching on the ride home. 

"No. Impress me." 

Arthur's idea of impressing her is a hole-in-the-wall Lebanese restaurant with the best hummus Ariadne's ever had. "I hate to tell you this, but you've set the bar pretty damn high."

"Ah, I knew we should have gone to Wendy's. The food here is perfect."

"Fit for the gods." Arthur laughs and leans back in his chair. "It's pretty sweet of you to pick up your niece every week." He shrugs.

"Her parents are busy. It's the least I can do. She's a great kid."

"She has a lot of talent." Arthur nods.

"You think she should keep going?" The question takes her by surprise. She's never thought about Laura going to dance school, busting her ass to get in with a company, doing whatever it took to get that part. She's never thought about her that way because Laura is young and lively and healthy and Ariadne is...she was going to be old some day and her body would be falling apart and she'd hate herself even more. She looks at her hands. Arthur clears his throat. "Do you wish you'd done something else?"

"No," she says quietly. "I'm happy where I am today."

"You're in pain. A lot of pain."

"I can control it," she snaps. Arthur pauses, then swallows.

"You can't control pain, Ariadne. Pain controls you."

 

 

December fades in January, and Ariadne sees Arthur a handful of times. She doesn't know what he does, but there's a string of lessons where another man comes to get Laura and Ariadne pretends not to be concerned. She's braiding her hair before bed one night, pointedly _not_ thinking of Arthur when someone knocks on her door. And she knows it's him because she _knows_ and because it has to be -- and it is. Leaning against the wall and looking out of place for probably the first time in his life, running a finger along the cracked paint of the wall.

"How'd you find my apartment?"

"I'm savvy like that." He grins and slips past her, pushing the door shut with his heel. "Nice place. Very _clean_. I like it."

"Arthur--" His lips are over hers in a second, sealing away whatever complaint she might have had. It's the kind of kiss she might have dreamt about. This is how Arthur would kiss, she figures. Stealing it away when she's least expecting it.

"I thought about you while I was gone."

"Where did you go?"

"Sacramento. Just for the week. For work." 

"Mmm..." Ariadne curls her arms around his neck, distracted. She can feel pain shooting from her hip and knee, but Arthur picks her up and carries her swiftly down the hall and it's forgotten, just like that. "There's supposed to be an order to this," she manages as his hands roam the warm expanse of her stomach and back. "Rhyme...reason."

"There is though." Arthur leans back, looking her right in the eyes, lips red and shining. "Can't you see it?" Ariadne narrows her eyes at him. He laughs. "You will," he murmurs against her neck. "In time. You will."

 

 

Ariadne comes to realize that Arthur lives in transit. He leaves his toothbrush at her apartment and sleeps there when he's in town, but other nights he's out and she doesn't see him for two days, maybe a week. This is when she meets Eames, and this is when she learns just how much she doesn't know about Arthur. How much she doesn't _want_ to know about Arthur.

Monday morning, three weeks since the first day she woke up with him. There is a British man sleeping on her sofa. 

Arthur doesn't know it, and because of that, whoever this guy is doesn't know it, but Ariadne keeps a gun in the linen closet because this is _fucking_ New York and you just never know. 

"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, _whoa!_ Easy, love. Just trying to--"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Friend of Arthur's. Trust me." The gun stays pointed right between the man's eyes. "My name is Eames. Arthur sent me to make sure you were okay."

"So you broke into my apartment." He shrugs, curling himself up into a stretch as he does, yawning. 

"Didn't say anything about you being a sharpshooter though. Nice aim." Ariadne looks at the gun and decides to trust him. For now. Eames offers to make breakfast and twenty minutes later there's a stack of warm, perfect pancakes in front of her. "Now, if I was sent here to kill you, would I waste my pancake skills on someone who would never be able to ask for them again?" Ariadne finally smiles and decides that she might like Eames. Just a little bit.

Arthur returns a few days later and they don't talk about Eames or the gun or pancakes or any of it. She's learning that if she doesn't want answers she won't like it's better not to ask. But when he comes back bleeding, arm swathed in bandages, limping or wincing when she wraps her arms around his neck -- she purses her lips and her voice freezes over.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he asks after a particularly icy evening. She's rinsing his blood off her hands and throwing away a bottle of once half-empty peroxide. 

"Because you're trying to get yourself killed and you won't tell me why."

"So ask." Ariadne wipes her hands on a dishtowel and fixes him with a glare.

"I only half want to know," she snaps, pulling out a pot to start dinner. For a while, they sit in relative silence, until Arthur gets up and wraps his arms around her waist. "Stop that," she warns. "I'm not in the mood."

"Will you dance for me tonight?" Ariadne sighs against his touch and leans back into him, gripping his hands in hers. "It's been too long."

"My ankle hurts." 

"So...you want me to dance for you?" Finally, she laughs. 

" _Anything_ but that."

 

 

Sometime between drawing them and regretting drawing them, Arthur finds Ariadne's sketches. She flinches like she's been slapped, watching him turn them over one by one when he thinks she isn't looking. But she is. She's watching him react to the penciled lines of her broken body, of his neck and arms, of strangers on the subway. The floor creaks under her as she tries to turn away. Arthur looks up.

"I didn't know you were an artist." 

"I'm not." He sighs and replaces all the sketches. 

"I didn't mean to find them. I was looking for matches. Maybe it's just a coincidence you keep the two of these in the same place?" He holds up the matches and the sketches. Ariadne's face softens. "You never stop surprising me," he murmurs, holding out his hand. Ariadne takes it and lets him pull her into his lap. "Let's go to bed, hmm?"

"Why'd you need matches?" He holds up a cigar. 

"From a friend in Mombassa."

"Not in my house."

"Fair enough." He kisses her side and she uncurls from his arms, pulling him along the hall and to the bedroom.

 

 

A year goes by, and Arthur gets to see her dance.

It's the first time she's danced since she finished her therapy. Her hip gives her a bit of trouble in the first movement, but she can see him in the audience and he anchors her, those sharp eyes standing out from all the others. And when it's over, he's waiting, flowers in hand as he kisses her. Ariadne feels tears sting at the corners of her eyes and smiles. 

"An absolute vision," he murmurs, grinning into her hair. She smells the flowers. Fresh and clean and fragrant. They walk home. It's winter again. 

Some time in the night, Ariadne wakes up and no one is there. She can hear Arthur's voice, strong and low in the living room. Quietly, she slips from the bed, wrapping herself a sheet and leaning against the wall. 

"I don't...Cobb, I don't want to do this. I can't. Not now. Not...not ever, I don't think. And you shouldn't either...She's not just a _girl_ , okay?" Arthur runs a hand through his hair. Ariadne realizes it's grown out over the year. "The answer's no. Find someone else." He snaps his phone shut and tosses it onto the couch, collapsing onto the cushions after it. Ariadne clears her throat. 

"You okay?" Arthur jumps up and crosses his arms over his bare chest. 

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I was just--"

"It's okay. I heard."

"You did." She nods. "I'm sorry. I didn't--"

"I don't really want to know what you do, Arthur." She moves closer to him. "I just want you to stay alive." Ariadne opens the sheet then, wrapping it around him, too, pressing her naked breasts to his chest and her cheek just over his heart. "I love you, and I need you to be alive." She feels the warm press of his hands on her back, pressing her flush against him. "Can you do that?" At this, he laughs.

"I suppose so," he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Good." Ariadne looks up at him and smiles. "Now tell me you love me. And come to bed."

"I love you," he murmurs, kissing her again. "I love you, I love you, _I love you._ " 

Ariadne swallows each one, tucks it away, and kisses him just above his heart, saving it all for later. 


End file.
